The Wawota, Saskatchewan native has played seven seasons in the National Hockey League, scored 116 goals, and tallied 278 points. He makes six and half million dollars a year. But that’s not what drives him. It’s his love of the game. He first stepped on the ice at five months. He began skating when he was two years old. By five, he was playing minor hockey. Laich lives for the sport. And when it didn’t come around to Washington last September, Laich wanted to go somewhere where they were playing the game.

“I grew up loving the game of hockey, not loving the NHL,” he said at the time.

So on September 28, Laich signed with Kloten Flyers of the Swiss National League A. Ten minutes away from Zurich by train, Kloten (pronounced k-LOOOO-ten as Laich is quick to point out) is city of around 20,000. It’s hockey team has been around since 1934, 40 years before the birth of the Washington Capitals.

Brooks Laich has played just nine games for the Kloten Flyers, but he’s already becoming a fan favorite. In the Flyers most recent home game, a couple of fans showed up to Kolping Arena with a special homemade sign for their leading scorer. Two observations. First: why haven’t we done this at Caps games yet? Second: Kloten fans should hold the sign by the glass and if Brooks scores, he should skate over and hit the LAICH button. I promise, I came up with that idea all by myself.

I hate the lockout. You hate the lockout. Pretty much everybody in the entire world hates the NHL lockout. But today, after doing some research with Fedor Fedin, we have found out something that makes the lockout a little bit more bearable.

On October 9th, 2012, we all learned a valuable lesson: Everybody has a bad day once in awhile, even a perfect human being like Brooks Laich.

In the Kloten Flyers’ 4-3 loss to Tyler Seguin‘s EHC Biel, Laich had one of his worse games as a pro. He garnered 16 penalty minutes — including a misconduct for checking Eric Beaudoinin the head — and oh yeah, he scored on his own team.